


come find me in the afterglow

by wreckingtomlinson



Series: we ain't got nowhere to go [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Selectively Mute Link
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-29 03:00:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15063557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingtomlinson/pseuds/wreckingtomlinson
Summary: “Depressing, isn’t it?” Revali comments after a few minutes of comfortable silence.Link chucks the apple core to the ground, and it rolls into the gap between two broken slabs of stone.The state of the castle or the fact that we’re literally the last two living people in all of Hyrule?“Both,” Revali decides after a moment’s thought.~Or, Revali and Link are the only survivors left after the Calamity strikes.





	come find me in the afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the upper left photo in [this post](http://maybetheyrefireproof.tumblr.com/post/151632804671/unsends-in-one-universe). i found it buried on my blog and all four screamed revalink to me, but i decided to go with just the first one to start so...here we are. can’t believe this is my first foray into actual legend of zelda fic. this hasn't been beta'ed so all errors are my own. you'll have to suspend disbelief a bit but just...hope you enjoy!
> 
> oh and the title is from [afterglow by all time low](https://youtu.be/p-8hYtOo5S0)

Revali thought everyone was dead.

When Calamity Ganon unleashed his attack, it was bigger, more powerful than they could have imagined. The Guardians and Divine Beasts that were meant to protect the land had been corrupted by his Malice, turning on the villagers and crushing everything in their paths. Their powerful laser blasts left no survivors.

Or so he thought.

Instead, when he goes to see the ruins of Hyrule Castle, he finds he’s not alone.

Someone else survived, apparently. Someone who seems to have had the same idea.

He’s a Hylian, Revali can tell. The pointed tips of his ears poke through his fair hair, and he’s dressed in typical Hylian garb. He’s sitting cross-legged on a crumbling stone wall right at the entrance gates to the castle, and—munching on an apple. What a strange person.

Something about him is intriguing.

Revali alights on the crackled cobblestones behind him, and he turns at the sound. His eyes are a shocking blue, all the depth of the sea combined with the infinite reach of the sky.

“I guess I’m not alone,” Revali says.

The man shrugs and says nothing, but doesn’t turn back around.

Revali motions to the destruction surrounding them. “I probably could have stopped this, you know,” he brags. “I don’t know why the princess chose Fyson to be the Rito Champion over me. I’m the most skilled archer of all the Rito.”

Instead of looking impressed, the stranger’s face is still blank. His mouth is scrunched to one side, like he’s not too sure.

Revali frowns. How can he not be amazed at this knowledge? Is he deaf? “Can you hear me?”

Slowly, the man nods, and Revali realizes that was a stupid question. He’d turned when Revali landed, so he must be able to hear. “Who are you, anyway?” Revali tries.

The man still remains silent, but puts the apple down before raising his hands and starting to move them. Revali realizes he’s using Hylian sign language.

_L. I. N. K._

“Link?” Revali asks. The man—Link—nods. “What are you doing out here?”

 _Thinking_. Link pauses, then keeps going. _I went to the Royal Guard Academy, but after all that time, they rejected me after graduation. Said I wasn’t the right fit. But it’s not like I would have made a difference anyway. I’m just one person._

“Of course one person can make a difference.”

 _Maybe someone like you can, O great archer of the Rito._ Link smirks, and Revali rolls his eyes when he realizes he’s being mocked.

“I could have,” he mutters sullenly. “All that idiot had to do was pilot Vah Medoh. How hard can that be?”

_I wouldn’t know. But it sounds like you do._

“You’re not funny,” Revali snaps. Link’s grin just widens. 

Revali could leave. He doesn’t have to stand here and be mocked. Nothing’s stopping him from soaring back into the air and leaving this rude little Hylian in the rubble alone. But…he doesn’t. For whatever stupid reason he can’t fathom right now, he doesn’t. Link still intrigues him, and the first question on his mind is _why doesn’t he speak_? But even Revali knows that’s rude to ask someone he’s just met.

“Depressing, isn’t it?” Revali comments after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

Link chucks the apple core to the ground, and it rolls into the gap between two broken slabs of stone. _The state of the castle or the fact that we’re literally the last two living people in all of Hyrule?_

“Both,” Revali decides after a moment’s thought.

 _You say that like I’m the worst person to be left on this earth with_. Link pouts. Revali refuses to find that adorable.

“I don’t even know you.”

_Well, all I know about you is that you’re apparently the greatest archer of all the Rito. Which is technically true now, considering you’re the only Rito left._

“Still not funny.” Revali crosses his wings, before finally giving Link his name. “Revali.”

They sit there for another few minutes as the sun begins to sink below the once-proud turrets of Hyrule Castle.

“Well,” Revali says, fluttering up to perch on the remains of a pillar, “I don’t know where you came from, but I have no home to go back to, so I was going to try to find a room in the castle.”

Link stands up, stretching his arms up over his head. _The rooms underground are probably in the best shape_.

“I take that to mean you’re coming, too,” Revali mutters, mostly to himself. “I guess I’ll…see you around?”

 _I have no home to go back to either. It’s not like either of us are going anywhere,_ Link replies with a raised eyebrow.

Everything he says makes Revali want to nip at his soft-looking hair. He tamps that urge down and takes off, circling the castle a few times before diving down.

Gaping holes in the castle walls make it easy for him to swoop inside. It seems most of the damage was dealt to the main rooms: the dining room, the throne room, the library, the entrance hall. Princess Zelda’s bedroom and study, housed at the very top of one of the turrets, is all but completely destroyed.

He’s got no particular love for the princess, especially after she passed him over for the job, but the sight still makes his stomach twist unpleasantly.

After a half hour of wandering, he finds a hallway illuminated by a lone torch, the yellow light casting the torn tapestries in a golden light. Link. Revali follows the light to find the Hylian has taken up residence in a modest guest room.

He’s sitting on the floor next to a bookcase that’s surprisingly still intact, fingers running over the hard spines of the books, before selecting one. He doesn’t look up once, nor does he acknowledge Revali’s presence at all, so Revali takes his leave.

The room next door is practically a mirror image of the one Link chose, and is in the same shape. Revali decides to take this one for now and lights a few candles. Maybe in the morning he can explore the rest, find a different one he likes better.

He takes his bag off his shoulder and empties the contents onto the writing desk. It’s not much: just his diary, wrapped up in an extra blue scarf. And he’s lucky even this much survived the destruction.

Inside the desk is a quill and inkwell. There’s something disturbing about how _un_ disturbed everything is here. It’s too perfectly preserved, like nothing touched it—a macabre tableau of what was before and what will never be again.

Revali opens his diary and starts to write. Who he’s writing for, he doesn’t know. It’s not like anyone’ll read it. But he keeps going, writing till the candle in front of his face has burned down to a third of its original height, and he hears stirring from the other room.

He pokes his head out to see Link opening his door. “Ah. It’s you.”

Link regards him with an unimpressed stare. _Who else would it be?_

Right. Everyone else is dead. Revali clears his throat to say something, but Link keeps going.

_I’m going to go find the kitchen. Are you coming?_

“Sure.” The silent hallways feel no less intimidating in the daylight, and Revali is half-certain monsters have to be lurking in the rubble. Then again…what would they be waiting for? Where even is Ganon?

Lost in his thoughts, he follows Link into the kitchen and almost walks directly into a counter. Link is already rifling through the cabinets, pulling vegetables from the pantry.

“You cook?” Revali asks. Link nods but doesn’t tell him anything more, locating a knife and starting to slice some carrots. “Anything I can do to help?” He’s not much of a cook himself, but he thinks he can make a decent salmon meunière.

Link doesn’t answer till he’s finished chopping. _If you could find some plates, that’d be a help._

Revali takes it as a dismissal. Fine. If Link doesn’t want his help, he can cook on his own. So he wastes some time opening cabinets at random until he finds two plates. And he even pulls down two drinking glasses etched with the royal family’s crest. “What are you even making?”

_Vegetable omelets. Don’t tell me you’re allergic to anything?_

“No, nothing.” He sets the plates down on the counter with more clatter than is necessary, peering over Link’s shoulder. “Why are you dicing everything?”

Link shoots him a glare as he slides the chopped veggies into a pot of water. _If all you plan on doing is standing there and judging me, you can get out of my kitchen._

Revali squawks. The nerve of this little Hylian, _honestly_. “ _Your_ kitchen? This isn’t _your_ kitchen.”

_Well, I’m the one cooking in it. You’re welcome to chop your own vegetables for your own omelet, so you can slice them however you want._

Revali’s chest feathers puff up. He’d fight anyone in Rito Village who spoke to him that way, but Link—well, Link is currently holding a very large chopping knife and even though Revali has wings, he doesn’t really like chances against a graduate of the royal guard academy. So he turns on his heel and stalks off to sulk in private. He thinks he hears Link exhale slowly on his way out.

He finds an alcove just down the hall, where some mice have taken up residence. Ignoring them, he roosts in the corner, wings wrapped around himself as he pouts. Link hates him. It’s the only reason Revali can think of for the way he was dismissed just now. Well, that’s fine. Revali never needed anyone, and he’s certainly not about to start with that nonsense now.

He sits there for a while, just listening to the pots clunk about down the hall. Everything is so quiet it’s haunting—normally this part of the castle would be bustling with activity, a half-dozen cooks and maids scurrying about preparing meals for the day. But instead, the kitchen now belongs to one little Hylian. An oddly intriguing little Hylian.

Revali waits until he hears all sound cease from the kitchen and Link’s footsteps fade down the hallway in the other direction. He creeps back into the kitchen, intending to make his own breakfast and partly expecting to see the used dishes strewn around the kitchen, or perhaps piled up in the sink.

Instead, the kitchen is left just as they found it, if not a bit cleaner. And in the middle of the counter where Link had been chopping carrots, is a single plate covered by a silver dome. Curious, Revali lifts the dome to find a vegetable omelet, still warm.

“That strange little bastard,” Revali mutters.

~

Revali wakes up the next morning with a question nagging at the back of his mind: how did Link survive the attacks? Sure, he trained in the Royal Guard Academy, but what good would a sword do against the Guardians’ laser blasts?

He decides to throw caution, as well as potential friendship, to the wind and ask over breakfast.

“So…how did you survive?” He tries to sound casual about it, leaning against the counter as he stays out of Link’s way.

Link gives him a humorless half-smile, barely more than a quirk of his lips. S _heer dumb luck. One second I was down in the root cellar, and the next I heard screaming. I didn’t have time to do anything but hide behind some crates of turnips and wait for everything to stop. I stayed there for—I don’t know how long. I just didn’t know what would happen if I went upstairs. It must have been a few hours at least. When I finally did go up, everything was completely destroyed. And I don’t know how, but the Guardians just…looked dead. I went up to one and poked it, and it didn’t do anything. And I thought maybe others had survived somehow too by going underground like me._ Link shakes his head, taking the pot off the stove and extinguishing the fire. _I guess they didn’t have time. It all happened so fast. But what about you?_

“Also sheer dumb luck.” Revali folds his wings. “When the Guardians arrived, we all took to the skies, only to find that there were flying ones, too. And of course, there was Vah Medoh, who was out of our control. But by the time we realized she wasn’t fighting the Guardians, she was fighting us…it was too late. I took off for a cave deep in the Hebra Mountains, one I had always imagined perhaps…building a nest in. I stayed there for a week, until I could be certain the damage was done.”

_You ran and hid._

“You didn’t fight either,” Revali snaps, hugging his wings tighter around himself. “I was bitter, alright? I was bitter that the princess didn’t choose me to pilot Vah Medoh, and I decided that if she didn’t want me then, she didn’t deserve my help at all.” His voice trails off at the end, the depth of his cowardice fully sinking in. “Oh, Goddess.”

Link puts a hand on his wing, waiting until Revali looks at him. _It’s not your fault,_ he tells him, his expression sincere. _I hid, too. What could either of us have done? It is what it is._

Revali eyes him for a moment, then sighs, shoulders slumping. “It is what it is.” He pretends he doesn’t notice the faint pink tinge coloring the tips of Link’s ears.

~

Over the next two weeks, he ends up learning something he finds fascinating about Link. He still gives no indication as to why he doesn’t speak, but Revali finds out he really likes to read, which comes as something of a surprise. He’s found him in the library several times, reading something different each time. So far he’s seen Link read cookbooks, history books, and even a collection of Zora legends.

Sometimes he joins Link, sitting on a sofa opposite him with his own book. They don’t communicate very much, both preferring the silence, but it’s a comfortable silence that Revali can’t say he’s ever known. Silence in general was never comfortable for him, really—the constant activity of Rito Village made any lulls feel unnatural. But this, he thinks, looking at Link as he turns a page with a soft flutter, is something he could get used to.

~

One night when they’re reading together, they stumble across a half dozen casks of mulled wine behind a bookshelf. _It would be a shame to let it go to waste, don’t you think?_ Link asks with a roguish grin, and so Revali sets to work opening one of the casks while Link scampers off in search of cups.

He comes back with two silver goblets, the lips wrapped in gold leaf and stems embedded with topaz, and together they drag the cask out into the main room of the library.

 _Cheers to secret stashes of alcohol._ Link pours himself a goblet and makes himself cozy in a pile of pillows while Revali does the same.

“Cheers to being alive,” Revali replies with a flick of his wingtip. They drink at the same time, Link’s wide blue eyes boring into Revali as they do so. It feels oddly intimate.

As the night wore on, they drink more, emptying an entire cask as Revali’s laughs grow lighter and Link’s hand gestures becoming bigger, more enthusiastic. The moon creeps higher in the sky till it’s directly above them, the light cascading through the broken ceiling to pool on the floor and wash them both in silver.

“Why don’t you talk?” Revali can’t help the way the question slips out. He’s not sure if he can be blamed, after the amounts of mulled wine they’d both consumed. But instead of looking indignant like he’d expected, Link’s countenance is more thoughtful than anything as he sits up.

 _I blame the royal guard academy,_ Link tells him. _They emphasize strength and discipline above all else. Which made sense. But it meant almost anything could be taken as a sign of weakness. Complaining of pain, or hunger, or even the weather—all of it was weakness. So I figured if I never spoke, then it would be impossible to show weakness._ Link pauses and gives a wry little smile. _And then after all that, they only recruited half my class for the royal guard. I went back to being a farmer. But by then, I decided I just didn’t want to say anything anymore. I got used to it._

Revali is quiet for a few moments after Link’s told his story. He talks so much himself, he can’t imagine such a self-imposed silence. “That must feel…lonely.”

 _Not as lonely as it might seem. I can hear, after all, so it’s not like I’m completely isolated._ Link changes the subject. _How do you know Hylian sign language?_

“There was a trader who came to the village every so often,” Revali explains. “Sometimes he brought his wife, who was deaf. I learned to understand it, but doing it myself is a little…difficult.” He holds up his wings. “ _These_ aren’t exactly conducive to those sorts of hand movements.”

 _Interesting_. Link doesn’t offer any more than that, though, relaxing back into the pillows and sipping at his goblet. He frowns. _There’s nothing left. Did we do that?_

“We did,” Revali replies, amused at the pout on the Hylian’s lips. “We’re not gonna be happy in the morning, are we?”

_Speak for yourself. I feel great._

Revali squawks out a laugh, a sharp screechy tone that has Link starting. “You know…I feel great, too.”

~

Revali’s right, because he always is. He wakes up feeling like his brain is stuffed full of cotton, tongue dry and wings sore like he’d been flying for days. He can’t imagine how Link is feeling. He lies in a while longer, listening for the soft padding of footsteps that indicate Link is awake. But he hears nothing. He yawns and rolls over, wishing he had a hammock rather than this cot made for Hylians. Maybe if he feels up to it later, and if he can find the supplies, he’ll rig one up. He covers his face with a wing and dozes off again.

When he wakes up the next time, it’s to the savory smell of salmon meunière. His favorite. He sits up straight, whacking his wing on the table next to the bed and screeching in pain.

Link is standing next to his bed, bearing a tray laden with food.

“What’s this for?” Revali asks, blinking blearily.

Link sets the tray down. _I woke up with a raging hangover and I thought if you felt anything like me, you might appreciate this._

“Thank you,” he says, before snapping up a piece of fish.

Link watches him for a few moments before telling him, _I’m heading up to the princess’s study._

“What for?”

Link shrugs. _Curiosity._

“Sounds macabre.”

_We’re already living in the ruins of a castle. How much more macabre can we get?_

Link has a point. He always has a point. Revali nods and tells him he’ll meet him there.

~

The first time it happens, Revali doesn’t even realize it. They’re in the kitchen making dinner together—or rather, Link is making dinner and Revali is watching the pot to make sure the soup doesn’t boil over.

“Revali.”

“What?” He answers automatically, not even stopping to think.

There’s silence, and then it hits him. He whirls around to see Link putting the knife down, an unreadable expression on his face. “Wait. Did you just…”

Link nods once. Then, in a voice soft and thin from disuse, he says, “I did.” His lips quirk into the smallest of smiles.

Revali just stands there dumbly, the pot forgotten on the stovetop. “What—why—I thought you said you got used to not saying anything. Why—why now?”

Link shrugs, folding his arms. “I stopped speaking because I didn’t want to show weakness,” he explains. “Now I have nothing to prove. To anyone.”

“You don’t feel you have anything to prove to me?”

“Should I?”

Revali pauses, then shakes his head. “No. You never had to.”

~

They talk a lot in the days that follow. Link doesn’t speak all the time, sometimes going back to sign language when he says he’s tired, but Revali doesn’t mind. He feels…honored, in a way, to get to hear Link’s voice. Link tells him more about his life, how he’d been recruited into the academy at the age of six and didn’t leave until he was eighteen.

“So you went…twelve years without speaking?” Revali gawks.

“Oh, no. More than that.” Link shrugs. “I stopped talking when I was seven, and I’m twenty now, so, thirteen, actually.”

“I was mostly right,” Revali sniffs. Link laughs aloud, and Revali thinks he likes hearing Link laugh even more than he likes hearing Link talk.

“Always have to be right, O great warrior of the Rito,” he teases.

“Stop mocking me.”

“You make it too easy.”

Revali absolutely refuses to acknowledge the way his feathers puff up in irritation, and he also refuses to acknowledge how that makes Link laugh even harder.

~

On the nights Revali can’t sleep, he takes his diary out to a ruined parapet near the dining hall and writes. It helps, sometimes, to perch outside and remind himself that there’s a world outside the castle. It might be a dead world, but it’s still a world.

Sometimes he thinks about leaving, about flying past the edges of the known map and seeing what lies beyond. As a chick, he used to wonder what lay to the north of the Hebra Mountains. All the maps showed a large but blank landform, and he could see hints of peaks, but he’d never known anyone who dared venture that far.

Would it be worth it? It could be a suicide mission, going in with nothing but a bow and quiver of arrows. Who knew what sorts of monsters lived there, or whether that place too had been laid to waste by the Calamity?

But is what he has here even a life? If he and Link truly are the last survivors in Hyrule, there would be no repopulating. They’ll just grow old in the castle, reading and talking and cooking, until they both inevitably die. What…what’s the point?

Link, though. Revali can’t fathom leaving him here alone, and he does enjoy the Hylian’s company. Is that enough for him?

These nights never do anything to ease his mind, and he never gets anywhere. So he scribbles all his thoughts down in an incoherent haze before retiring when he sees the beginning hints of the dawn.

~

Revali’s grown used to wandering into the kitchen first thing in the morning to see Link cooking. So on the morning he walks in to see an empty kitchen, he thinks he’s justified in his confusion. He goes back to Link’s room to see the door still shut.

He knocks. “Link, are you awake?” Nothing.

He scours the castle for Link, only to turn up empty at every corner. It’s not like he just up and left; all his things are still in his room. Where could he be?

Revali finds him on the balcony outside the dining hall, reading something.

Fuck, Link’s reading his diary.

“Where did you find that?” It comes out as more of a strangled squawk than anything.

Link looks up, something unreadable in his eyes. “It was here.”

“And you just pick up anything lying around and read it?”

Link shrugs. “I thought it might have belonged to the princess or one of the Champions.”

“Yes, well, you should have stopped once you realized it was mine. That’s rude.”

Link flips him the bird, but closes the diary anyway. “Did you mean it?”

“What are you talking about?” Revali huffs.

“All the stuff you wrote in here, about wanting to leave but not wanting to leave me alone.”

“It would be stupid to write lies in my own diary.”

“I’m serious.” Link pauses. “Am I keeping you here?”

Revali waffles for a moment. “No, not at all. I mean, everything I wrote is true. We have no idea what's beyond Hyrule, or what kind of monsters are out there. It wouldn’t be wise to go, that’s all I’m—”

“I don’t want to be the only reason you stay, but…I’d still like it if you did.”

It comes out in a whisper, so soft Revali almost doesn’t catch it. “Really?”

“Really. I’d get bored of this place in a week if I was here alone.” Link meets his gaze, eyes wide and unguarded. “I mean, sometimes I thought about just…traveling the world, but it’s not like there’s much of a world left to see. At least here I can read and cook and write, maybe try to start the gardens again.” He shrugs. “Make a life. But like I said. Don’t let me be the reason you stay.”

Revali rolls his eyes and looks out over the rubble of the castle gates. “I like the life I’ve made here, too, you know. But you’re wrong about one thing. It was always about you.”

“It—what?” It’s Link’s turn to be speechless, it seems. “About me?”

Revali sighs. “You’re really going to make me explain everything, aren’t you?”

“Now you have to.”

Revali opens his beak, then snaps it shut. “You know what? I don’t have to. Not right now, at least.” Link starts to interrupt, but he cuts him off. “I think my feelings have been made rather obvious by my diary, and if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives here I think we can put off this conversation until…until we find some more mulled wine.”

Link laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkling up with mirth, and he nods. “Fine. But someday?”

Revali unfurls a wing and curls it around Link’s shoulders, drawing him close. “Someday.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you for reading! i am considering making this something of a miniseries (4 parts total, one for each universe). let me know what you think! come visit me on tumblr at my [main blog](http://maybetheyrefireproof.tumblr.com) or [loz blog](http://leafviolin.tumblr.com)!


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